


MAD

by KaeKae



Category: RED (2010), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom, XMFC - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, BAMF!Charles, BAMF!Moira, Cherik - Freeform, M/M, Romance, XMFC/RED fusion, excessive use of cane as a weapon, guns and explosions, mental asswhooping, schmoopy feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:13:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaeKae/pseuds/KaeKae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an incident forced him into retirement, ex-CIA agent Charles Xavier has been living as a college genetics professor. </p>
<p>Now the government he served wants him dead and he’ll need to return to the life he’d moved on from to find out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> In the middle of watching RED a few weeks ago I was struck not only by the sheer awesome of the movie, but how easily this fic idea came to me in the midst of airplanes and rocket launchers. Normally an idea will die down and go away, but this has been nothing if not persistent. And it is the perfect opportunity for badass Charles who I feel, as much as I love the hapless scholar trope, is grossly neglected and underestimated a lot of times. As I work two jobs I was unsure if I'd have time or energy to focus on a project, but so far I've been able to and I'd like to hope I can do nothing but keep moving forward at this point. 
> 
> I have about 13 chapters planned out, but we'll see what happens. 
> 
> I'll take a moment to dedicate this fic to Maimo who cheered me on from the beginning. Many thanks to Peaches who kicked me into gear and S and Tak, who've been nothing but supportive while I whined to them about the woes and worries of writing. Kisses, darlings. An additional thanks to Peaches for beta-ing, bless you.
> 
> Note: After the prologue, we revert back to past tense. Just FYI.

For the past eight years Charles Xavier has started his day the same exact way.

One cup of black tea with two spoons sugar and ample cream, an egg and buttered toast, his lab research notes and plans spread out on the small kitchen table before him, and his two handguns in pieces and ready for him.

Today is no different.

The genetics professor is wrapped up snuggly in his housecoat, tousled brown hair – growing longer and longer as his haircuts get father apart – adding to his distinctly rumpled look, and in his kitchen by 5:05 am.

Sitting at his kitchen table, he reestablishes his mental shields, ever vigilant about his neighbor’s privacy and his own protection, as he neatly starts the daily cleaning of his guns.

Charles knows better than to believe that his powers will always work on another, no matter how powerful he may be. He might not usually shoot to kill, but that does not lessen the importance of their upkeep.

His 9 mm, the Stark S1-9 is cleaned quickly and efficiently. It’s a pretty steel piece, not yet out in the market for a few more years, and a sight for anyone with a love of mechanical aesthetics, with its etched barrel and patterned grip. The contact he received it from crooned about its cutting edge design and how it would raise the standard of all military grade pistols.

Compared to Charles’ other piece, however, it is just a decent gun.

The .40 is a true piece of art: sleek and black with twin steel streaks down the slide, and the initials E.L. in script on the solid grip. He cleans this gun with the same tenderness each time, out of memory, and out of reverence for a beauty whose clear precision and range are far ahead of its time. This gun has no brand, no company to produce and sell it. Its creator designed it solely for himself.

_Charles leveled the gun, eyebrows furrowed, “I’m sorry, my friend.”_

And now it is Charles’.

After the guns are put back together and gently set aside with freshly cleaned hands, Charles flips through the lab notes from the previous week; notes so thorough that Charles at times wonders if his lab tech does anything but take them. But Hank McCoy is pure genius and if it takes him 12 pages to summarize one day of analyzing petri dishes, then so be it.

All the while the tea level in his cup steadily lowers as he sips with idle purpose.

***

By 6:30 am his notes are set aside, tea cup air drying on the dish rack, and he is heading down into the basement of his small suburban home with his guns in tow, ready for his daily workout.

An unorthodox regimen, even for the apparent forward thinking views of 1970, but as Charles is English he does not deem conforming to American standards a necessity in his life.

Though on occasion he does enjoy Jack LaLanne’s programs.

For Charles, calisthenics and yoga are his means of staying fit and limber. Biweekly visits to his physical therapist and a weekly massage helped to further ensure the upkeep of his body. Regardless, he is not in the same condition he was eight years ago, when field work required a lot more physical exertion than what his contacts say agents do nowadays, what with their new technology. Then again, those agents are also human.

_“You need to maintain prime fitness to keep up with this job, Charles.” A fond chuckle accompanied by a touch, the tenderness of the contact a contrast to the roughness of the fingers that moved along his sides, “Can’t fit into a wetsuit if you go soft…”_

The rather sedentary life of a teacher does not usually call for the work involved with wetsuits - if the gentle curve of his stomach was anything to go by.

Despite his stellar health, Charles is forced to take a cane with him when he goes to work or even out for a walk down the block. A precarious shard of a bullet remains in his L4 vertebrae from the incident that led to his retirement, far enough to pose no risk to his spinal cord, but close enough that no surgeon was willing to risk removing it.

The result of long term movement is a set of irritated muscles and nerves that further his limp, not to mention a shooting pain down his leg.

Few ask about his cane and his limp and Charles never discusses it.

His students never needed an explanation, having passed a story down through his years at the college that he is a retired James Bond figure who survived an awe inspiring battle wound while saving the world.

It had been anything but that.

***

At 8:30 Charles heads back upstairs with his robe over his arm and his shirt slightly damp with sweat, the fabric clinging to his lower back.

If it was a week day, his shower would be quick, but as it was Sunday, Charles indulges with a long soak.

It is a luxury he can afford and one that his body appreciates, pale skin never failing to turn pink under the attention of the hot water.

_“Slide over some, please?” Charles slipped into the shower, stealing the spot right under the showerhead and sighing blissfully as hot water poured over him. When he opened his eyes, green-grey ones were focused right on him. Charles quirked a brown brow, his cheeky grin showing exactly how unapologetic he was, “Yes, my friend?” The other was silent for a moment, “Are your team’s showers pre-occupied, then?” Charles nodded, “Quite so, I’m afraid. And everyone is apparently more concerned about modesty than speed and practicality.” He leveled the taller man with an assessing look, “You’re Alpha Team’s second in command, aren’t you? We’ve never been properly introduced.” He offered his hand, “Charles Xavier, lead of Beta Team.”_

He comes out of the shower, refreshed and clean with the gentle smell of herbal soap following him. Raven describes his scent as that of tea and sunshine. He accepts that description without protest.

The fluffy towels he uses to dry himself are another indulgence and his hair is even more fussed when he finishes toweling himself off.

He never bothers with donning his robe when he exits the bathroom, leaving his clothes in the hamper beside his shower, enjoying the feeling of shag carpet beneath his toes as he goes to his bedroom.

Dressing oneself on a Sunday is an ordeal only for church goers; Charles has not had such a stress in years and is content to keep it that way. He slips on corduroys and a loose linen shirt given to him by Raven, completing the casual summer look with a simple pair of house slippers.

It is 10 am when Charles head downstairs, guns retrieved from his robe pockets and placed in his chest holster. Such an item is hidden under a suit jacket or cardigan when he is out, but such cover is unnecessary in his own home.

He uses this time on the weekends for mental training and tea in his living room; testing the strength of his shields and wards, working on extending how far he can reach with his mind and remain shielded, and even practicing on shifting his astral form.

These exercises purposefully exhaust him – it has always been Charles’ belief that if one does not challenge oneself, you will never learn and grow.

Of course the students he currently teaches, save for twelve, only worry about that lesson in regards to their academic career.

Exhaustion and hunger, however, are poor companions for Charles and by 1:30 a sandwich is necessary to relieve at least one of his ailments. Two sandwiches, actually. Two stacked sandwiches. Two stacked sandwiches followed by a nap right on his couch, arms wrapped around his chest and toes tucked beneath his thighs.

A short nap every day is healthy for the mind and necessary for Charles’ sanity.

***

Raven knows to expect his call around 4:00 pm and the phone rings only once before she picks up.

“Charles! Charles, I’ve got the best news ever!”

This was a potentially terrifying thing for Raven to start with, but Charles simply braces himself, “Oh? And what might that be?”

“You know that band that I switched The Temptations with last time I visited you? Led Zeppelin? They’ll be in Virginia in a couple days and that’s just a couple hours away and so I’m going to go with friends and it’s going to be amazing!”

While significantly less worrisome than Charles at first expects, a new anxiety rises and his lips press together, “Raven—“

“Charles. I can hear your frown, I’ll be fine. I promise. Standard precautions and I’ve always got my knives on me.”

He can hear her exasperation clearly as she can apparently see his frown and they are both silent for the moment.

“Charles…please, I’m not a child anymore. I know I have to be careful, but, that doesn’t mean I can’t have…does it?”

Her voice is soft and Charles cradles the phone to his face, expression softening from stern lines to a tender smile. He cannot blame Raven for just wanting to experience all that she can.

“No. No, it doesn’t. I’m sorry, love. Please forgive the worries of a big brother. You have my blessings.”

Were Charles an empath he is positive that he would feel Raven’s emotions spike up, but it’s simply that her smile is so loud over the phone. “Thank you! And I’ll be safe, I promise! I’ll call you from the hotel, okay? We’ll be right in Hampton. It’s supposed to be beautiful there…”

And their conversation delves into city life and how Raven cannot stand the suburbs and she does not understand how Charles can be so compliant with being put where he is.

His sister has grown into a fiercely independent, opinionated young woman and his pride knows no bounds when it comes to her and her rejection of the norms of today’s society.

Raven is the variable in his life that is never the same and Charles is grateful to still have her in his life.

***

Charles retrieves his college lab plans to chart out more instructions for his techs and students. On one hand, a fairly dry activity in of itself, but on the other, it’s just another step in a process that Charles has high hopes for.

He settles in his reading room at the back of his house for this, curtains closed so that nothing can distract him from the task at hand.

When one makes their work their life, it is easy to lose track of the hours.

_A plate of assorted finger foods was set right atop the book Charles was currently reading, startling him out of the world of molecular structure, “Wha--” “You read right through dinner. You should take a break, Charles.” Charles tried to frown but his body betrayed him when strong hands began to knead his shoulders. He sighed, head rolling to the side and resting against the man’s forearm before pressing a gentle kiss to a knuckle. “So says you. You never stop working except to tell me to. And besides, this is just a bit of light pleasure reading.” The other snorted and apparently bent over because his lips touched the top of Charles’ well-kept hair, “Eat, Charles.”_

Dinner is light: a small salad and a baked potato with dressings with the evening news on the radio in the background.

Contrary to Raven’s belief, he is fully capable of cooking for himself. He takes her out to eat when she visits simply because he likes to have someone to indulge with.

It does not take him long to finish and clean up after himself. A single set of dinnerware never takes long to wash.

He takes a bottle of scotch back to his reading room, putting on the same record he listened to the previous night, and curls up in the loveseat with a well-read novel, the bind worn enough that “Their Eyes Were Watching God” was barely legible.

The sweet voice of Ms. Francis crooning from his record player lulls him into a world he’s visited many times before and never tires of no matter how many times his heart is broken by it.

When the words begin to blur from more than a simple tiredness, Charles knows it is time for bed.

And on a Sunday, when his morning needs to move faster and he has to get to work, 10 o’clock pm is an ideal bed time.

His slow swagger is exaggerated by the gentle touch of alcohol in his system, but at this point in his life he could make it to his room backwards with his eyes closed if absolutely had to.

***

His bed is large enough to make him feel like a small child as he climbs in, wearing the flannel bottoms and a simple cotton shirt that is his nightwear. He rolls onto his side knowing full well he’ll be on his stomach by morning.

As Charles does not share his bed, through the night he will progressively spread his limbs out and take over it entirely.

 _“Is it really wise for me to stay in your bed?” Apparently his lover did not actually care whether it was wise or not for he continued to kiss across the span of Charles’ white shoulder, settling his face in the crook of the smaller man’s neck. “You’re more than welcome to leave if you need to.” Charles’ voice was light, still breathless at that point, limbs curled around his lover in a boneless manner. “I can’t if you don’t let me go, Charles.” Charles smiled against the prominent clavicle beneath his mouth, “You’re still inside me, Erik. We’ll see who moves first.”_

Charles keeps his .40 under the pillow beside him and his 9 mm is tucked neatly in a secure spot between his mattress and headboard. He cocoons himself in his feathered comforter while reestablishing his telepathic wards and alerts.

Better than guard dogs, if you asked him.

It never takes Charles long to fall asleep, retreating into his mind and simply allowing himself to dream.

And when he wakes it will be time to start yet another day, one that will end the same way as today: him, alone in his government assigned home, living a life that he never expected to have.

Except a few hours later his perfectly normal cycle is broken when his mental alarms pull him into consciousness. His mind locks onto the three armed and highly dangerous people currently in the process of breaking into his house.

The calculated plan in their minds is proof enough to him that this is anything but a misunderstanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connie Francis made this chapter possible with the songs "I'm Sorry I Made You Cry", "My Happiness", and "Among My Souvenirs".


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a little bit, sorry about that. Work always takes up a lot of my time, but hopefully with my new schedule I'll be able to get my writing done even faster now! One can only hope. 
> 
> I must thank my darling betas, Ari, Subtilior, and Nekosmuse for cleaning this thing up and ensuring that this chapter does not suck. Love you, darlings.
> 
> And of course so much love to Maimo for keeping me inspired and being such a wonderful muse.
> 
> As a note:
> 
> {Charles' thoughts.}
> 
> {{Someone else's thoughts.}}
> 
> Warning for use of an albeist slur.

2:33 a.m. was not Charles’ ideal time to be awake. 

He was forced to admit, however, that with hostile intruders downstairs, sleep was a luxury he could no longer afford. Their presence blared in his mind and Charles winced as one of them noted they were tracking dirt on his carpet.

{{Get a cleaning crew in to fix the window screen and clean this mess up. Can’t leave anything suspicious.}}

At least, with their thoughts clamoring against his shields, Charles could tell that none of them wore anti-psionic gear, which ensured that this situation would be easily dealt with.

Charles eased out his warm bed, the wood flooring creaking beneath his feet, and settled a sizeable amount of his focus on the minds of the three- man team invading his home.

Information needed to be retrieved before Charles properly welcomed them.

Charles’ method of thought extraction was as clean as a mental invasion could get. And the fact that he was capable of gleaning necessary information undetected made it an invaluable trick - to him, and to his previous employers in the government.

Charles’ tugged his holster into place over his night shirt, thumbs running down the smooth leather of the straps, and he threw mental cast lines across the minds of the men downstairs.

Barbs on the lines caught the most prominent of surface thoughts, and with a small pull, Charles reeled in the connected thoughts - and thoughts connected to those thoughts, that were connected in some way to other thoughts -

It went without saying that not all the information Charles pulled was what he needed to know, and rarely was it linear, but the overall catch was rarely less than satisfactory.

{{Just a fuckin’ professor…}}

{{My wife would like that painting…}}

{{Just let everyone follow the damn plan and it’ll be fine…}} 

That was the mind Charles wanted.

He released his connections to the other minds, their thoughts falling back to mumbles outside his shields, and gave the remaining line a firmer tug.

{{This plan is too complex for just a scientist.}}

{{Charles Xavier? Sounds like the perfect name for some stuffy scientist.}}

{{All the file says is that Xavier’s suspected of having connections to the Soviet government.}}

{{Why would the bosses be quiet about D.C. wanting him?}}

That was all Charles needed to know. He did not bother to suppress his gentle sigh. 

He had settled down where his former employer politely demanded and obediently picked his studies back up. He had re-assimilated to the best of his abilities. Charles had cooperated to the fullest and yet they wanted him brought in by these men. Mercenaries, their thoughts had told him: a private militia for hire.

He was wanted dead or alive.

Charles rubbed the sleep from his barely open eyes and shifted, face distorting as he felt a pull in his right hip. He continued to shift until the pull released with a sharp popping of his joint. The joys of being out of shape were limitless, truly.

Charles settled his hands atop his hips and slowly bent backward, feeling a shift in each vertebra as he went lower and lower. Downstairs all movement had halted - they had heard him and were attempting to figure out what to do.

{Good.}

The communism charge was just a farce. McCarthy was long gone but the government found his methods of handling their national enemies most useful.

If he were honest with himself, Charles had expected this to happen. Perhaps not so soon, but it was inevitable. He knew too much about the inner workings of the American government and had been a key figure in too many of their darkest secrets. The fact that he was a mutant only compounded the risk he presented.

Charles straightened his body and pulled his guns from their hiding places to set them into their respective holsters. He picked his grey-blue flannel housecoat up from the foot of his bed and eased into it, simultaneously using his toes to pull his slippers out from under the bed.

After he dealt with his unwelcome house guests, Charles was going to have a word with his former employers.

He tied the housecoat loosely, solely as a precaution, and wiggled his feet into well-worn slippers, faded from scarlet to pink after an incident concerning bleach. Charles went to his nightstand and lifted his cane from its place against the wall, passing it from hand to hand.

The elegant line of wood was deceiving: the Blackwood was simply a shell to cover a solid bar of steel that made up the entire shaft and extended out through the sturdy wood as a crooked handle, polished to a silver gleam.

A gentleman’s cane.

Twice a week sparring practice was hardly the way to stay in proper fighting condition.

Red lips pulled down as he settled the cane in his left hand and moved to the doorway.

This would be similar to the “training” the CIA had put him through.

_“It’s called a crash course test, bub.” The burly man in front of Charles offered a wry grin and shrugged one of his broad shoulders, “You learn as you get through it. Now c’mon. We have a nuclear plant to dismantle.”_

Charles could only hope for less blood and explosions this time.

Charles stepped into the hallway; his slippers made minimal noise on the plush green shag beneath them.

He was not trying to hide, especially after he ensured that they would hear him: Charles simply needed the intruders lined up in an orderly fashion.

Sometimes a plan called for bait.

The stairs squeaked with each step Charles took. The mercenaries, who had finally decided to exit the bedroom, froze - and their focus snapped onto him.

Charles simply yawned and scratched his stomach with his spare hand while he allowed a few of their thoughts through his shields.

{{A cane? Seriously? Why even send a group of us if he’s just a fuckin’ cripple--}}

{{Shit, why did we even bother to be cautious…}}

{{So much for plausible threat, this guy--}}

That was all Charles needed to hear.

His threat level had fallen at damning speeds in their minds. Charles turned left at the bottom of the stairs and smiled as their confidence spiked, his back open to them from the opposite side of the hallway. They were never properly trained in regards to underestimating an opponent.

They moved slower than Charles’ lazy amble towards the kitchen, but their thoughts of premature success yammered away outside his shields.

Charles cracked each side of his neck and pushed through the white swinging door at the end of the hallway, right into his marble-bedecked kitchen.

Only to cut left around the door and slip out the window tucked neatly against the wall.

Had Charles not had a team of armed persons to worry about, there would be no lack of chagrin over the fact his half-open window came close to being a tight squeeze.

Charles instead focused on immediately getting back inside his house through the window of his other spare bedroom. 

He pushed this window almost entirely open this time.

Charles tossed his cane in first, confident that with the door closed and carpeting to dampen any noise, he would not be noticed. He followed suit and hoisted himself up, ever careful of the guns at his chest, pulling himself into the room with a tumble.

Speed and silence were a necessity for survival.

Charles had wetsuit experience, years more than the unfortunate fools mentally broadcasting their every action. Charles grabbed his cane and carefully opened the bedroom door, blue eyes immediately moving to the tail guard a few feet already past the door.

The very men who had been following him were perfectly lined up before him. They wore night gear, their black body armor good for protection against any basic military weaponry, and each had about three guns strapped on their bodies. Well covered and well-armed and had they any proper protection against Charles’ abilities, they would have been more of a challenge if they had succeeded on sneaking up on him.

Charles’ fingers wrapped further down the handle of his cane as he bent down into a crouch and moved to take his place in line.

The lead lifted his hand and three clicks softly sounded in the hallway as the men turned off the safeties of their guns.

{{Three…two…}}

The lead signaled toward the door and promptly kicked it down.

The man right in front of Charles was the first down: two of Charles’ fingers to the back of his skull helped focus the delivery of a mental knockout. Like a blow with an aluminum baseball bat – only without blood splattered across the wall.

The sudden collapse of an armored body did not go unnoticed, even when distracted by confusion, but Charles smoothly interrupted the second man in mid swivel with a cane to the throat.

The choking mercenary collapsed forward and his shifting helmet revealed the base of his skull; a firm tap from Charles with his cane to that delicate spot ensured that the merc was laid out on the floor next to his squadmate.

The group lead had plenty enough warning by then, but seeing a mussed scientist with a cane take his squad down at close range did not dissuade him from charging Charles with a filled syringe.

Charles cleanly knocked the syringe to the ground with a spin of his cane. Another spin and he caught his opponent’s arm with the metal crook. Charles yanked the man closer and jabbed him right in the throat with three fingers pressed firmly together.

Charles watched a set of hazel eyes roll back and he allowed the man to join the rest of his team.

A mental kick finished the job, a wheeze escaping the man before his body slumped when he fell into unconsciousness.

Charles stepped gently over the bodies in his way. The basement was his goal, hand holding his cane over his shoulder as he pulled the door open and hurried down yet another set of stairs.

From the stairs Charles headed straight for a picture on the wall, fingers taking hold of the frame, and lifted it up.

The simple aesthetics of the revealed safe gave the lie to the complex lock mechanism. Well practiced, it took Charles mere seconds to pop it open. He retrieved passports, some additional ammo clips, a key ring, and an emergency stash of cash and then tossed them all into a briefcase.

Charles moved to the far corner of the room and set his cane atop the small desk he kept there. His robe followed suit, shrugged off with ease and tossed beside a simple red phone – the only thing that originally decorated the desk.

Charles reached out to the three unconscious men a floor above him and picked up the phone.

He settled a mental hold on the first man, then connected it to the second man, and finished a circle with the last man connecting to the other. Charles inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly: it had been a length of time since he performed any telepathic tricks.

{Draw your guns, gentlemen.}

Tapping into the primal mind was easier than taking full control of a person, especially with no active ego to fight against.

Charles sent a few impulses to fix their aim, as they all were on the ground – he did not want them to hurt each other – and picked up the phone.

{Fire.}

Three assault rifles started to fill his walls with bullets.

Charles dialed quickly and tucked the receiver between this head and shoulder while he pulled his handguns out to check the full magazines.

The phone rang only three times before it was picked up, the voice on the other side groggy and slow.

“H-Hello?”

Charles’ voice warmed as he smiled and tension eased out of his shoulders, “Hello, Hank! Terribly sorry to call at such an obscene hour—“

“Hnn—P-Professor?”

“Oh!” Charles emptied each clip and proceeded to hold each bullet at eye level to examine for previously missed flaws, “Yes, I apologize Hank, it’s Charles—“

“Professor! Are—Is that gunfire?”

Charles raised his eyes to the ceiling and toward the source of the noise. He did not have time to explain its necessity as a distraction, “Don’t mind the racket! Family emergency came up, I’m afraid, so I’m leaving you in charge of the labs until I get back.”

“Professor?”

Pleased with the bullets, Charles started to load them back in the magazines, “Yes, Hank?”

“When will that be?”

Charles did not miss the tremor in the other’s voice. “Hm…Well, Hank, to be honest…”

Charles picked up his beloved custom, its weight comfortable in his hand.

It was not reassuring until he slid the reloaded magazine in. “I’m not quite sure.”

Charles hated speaking over anyone, but there was little time to break everything down to Hank. “I’ll drop my lab plans off at my office. You have a key, correct? I know you can do it, Hank. I am putting all of my trust in you. I will call you periodically to check up on how things are going.”

“But professor—“

“Take care, Hank! And get some rest!”

Charles hung up. Hank was bright and responsible: he would be fine.

The gunfire had ceased near a minute ago and it had done exactly what Charles had hoped: drawn out the second team lurking on the fringes of his shielding.

This group was properly cautious and thought themselves more prepared than the first. Team One had not brought the target out yet, live ammunition use had been issued, and the team had yet to reestablish contact. The message was clear: the scientist would not be easily caught.

He shoved the handguns back in their holsters, picked up his cane and briefcase, and hurried back upstairs. No matter how well-equipped these mercenaries thought themselves to be, they were not prepared to take him on.

Charles paused and set his briefcase down by the doorway in the midst of a bullet-riddled hallway. The last thing he needed was to break it on one of these poor fools’ faces.

The second team had moved in through the dining room and had grouped in the living room.

Charles snuck through the kitchen and into the dining room, pausing at the door to the living room and peeked. He did his best to refrain from rolling his eyes.

The closest of this three-man team had his weight shifted into his right hip, gun over his shoulder, and his backside thoughtlessly exposed – one of those self-stylized devil-may-care types.

He was down and out when Charles whipped around the doorway and struck him with his cane right on his exposed temple, proving that choosing style over safety was a poor life decision.

The second man gaped at Charles openly, entirely caught off guard. Charles offered a carefree smile and the man screamed at him and charged.

But Charles was seven steps ahead of him. He turned as the man near-collided with him and used the large man’s momentum against him, grabbing him and throwing the merc right over his shoulder…

And into the final man who had thought – in a very highly projected manner – that Charles would be too distracted to notice a sneak attack.

They knocked clean through the door to his reading room and collided with his coffee table.

Charles shook his head and knocked the both of them out with a mental slam as he examined the mess his living room had become.

To ensure there was no one left, Charles sent out a wave of power through his house, and froze.

Something was off.

There was nothing by his front door.

Nothing but a void.

And Charles could clearly see something.

“Shit!”

Charles launched himself over the back of his couch in time to avoid getting pierced by shards of wood as his front door was smashed in.

“Can’t ever use the bloody door and when they do, they don’t even have the decency to properly open it.”

Charles huffed and discarded his cane, giving his head a shake to free some wood chips from his hair. He had few options, so he moved on instinct and jumped up, guns at the ready.

{Oh dear. Not my brightest decision.}

The force that had blown his door open had not stayed at a distance and Charles was forced to tilt his head back to get a better look at the person before him.

A beast – no, a man, a mutant, grinned at him and bared a ferocious set of teeth.

He was huge – over six foot by far, and in position of an impressive amount of hair, facial and otherwise. He also happened to be collared.

That explained the void.

Mutant control collars: made up of a complex internal system of batteries and gears that kept telepaths and the like out and let others, namely humans, control the one collared with the proper command gears.

Except: whoever once controlled this mutant was out of the picture.

“Oh.”

The man was much faster than Charles.

Charles never appreciated having the wind knocked out of him: especially when the method of delivery consisted of being picked up and thrown into the wall. His guns went flying from his hands as he and his wall decorations crashed to the floor.

{That was right in the thoracic…}

Charles performed a clean evasive roll but the mutant’s lunge was quicker, and Charles found his ankle caught in a vice grip.

Rarely was Charles forced to rely solely on his physical abilities, but even there he was highly proficient. He simply did not often deal with such powerful opponents.

Charles grunted as he was hoisted up by a single leg like a caught rabbit, all too aware of the claws terrifyingly close to his Achilles tendon.

However, rather than taking that moment to slice the soft of Charles’ exposed belly, the mutant chose instead to laugh at his prey.

It was all Charles needed.

House guests believed the 1940 Winchester that normally hung on the wall was for show.

In Charles’ house, everything was a potential weapon.

Charles swept back for the shotgun, arching his back for additional reach. His fingers just managed to grasp the gun when the bestial man laughed again and gave Charles a small shake, perhaps mistaking his movement for a struggle.

Eyes narrowed, Charles swung back up and clicked the safety off. The mutant did not have time to react before the well-known reverb of a pump action shotgun sounded through the sudden quiet of the room. 

At such close range the pellets blasted apart the man’s collar and tore open his throat.

Charles' ears were ringing, but when the hand on his ankle opened, Charles managed to tumble out the short fall with relative ease.

The last thing he needed was a concussion.

He still ended up with blood on his face, though.

The huge man stumbled back, blood soaking his shirt, but as Charles hurried to his feet, he could clearly see the pellets being pushed from the man’s neck as his wounds closed.

{Oh, well that’s just fascinating!}

Though Charles would have enjoyed nothing more than sitting the man down and having a spot of tea while they discussed his mutations…the blood lust consuming the other’s mind prevented any chance of that happening.

Guns and mental taps would not take this man down.

This man, this…

{Victor.}

The man’s mind was a haze of red, a cacophony of screams, freed from abusers who had thought themselves his masters.

“Victor, I need you to calm yourself.”

Victor snarled in response, but Charles stood his ground, refusing to stand down from those bared canines.

It was not, perhaps, Charles' most dignified stand-off. One of his slippers had ended up in the (thankfully off) gas fireplace when Victor shook him. 

Charles tugged his pants back up properly and looked straight back into Victor’s eyes – they would not leave him.

Charles heard the storm of Victor’s mind shift as it latched onto a focal point.

{{Preypreypreypreypreyprey--}}

Charles squared his shoulders and even dared to take a step forward.

“Victor, I’ll only give you one more warning. I need—“

Victor would not heed Charles. He dropped to a crouch, head lowering as he prepared to leap.

{No you don’t!}

And that was all Victor did.

It was never pleasant business: taking entire control of someone, of their body, of their mind.

Victor’s mind was strong.

Charles was out of practice.

It was like being caught in a tornado: Charles would either end up broken or thrown out, possibly both.

Perhaps it was sheer luck that Charles was not as out of practice as he feared, though his daily exercises might have helped a small amount, at the very least.

Though small tremors ran through Charles’ physical form, his astral body stood strong and began to walk through the howling wind.

{I’m sorry, my friend. But I need you to be quiet.}

The mind was not ruled by the body. One’s physique, their physical strength, did not determine their mental strength. Nor did intelligence equate to will power.

Like wielding a fist or a cane, a mental strike had to be weighed out with just the appropriate amount of force. Even with years of experience, a telepath danced along a fine line between administering a temporary injury and leaving someone a drooling vegetable.

Little compared to the horror of witnessing someone’s psyche shattering. Victor was mentally strong, his will power most admirable, but he was too stunted by his bloodlust to fully protect himself.

So Charles dropped a grenade at the glaring weak link holding Victor to consciousness.

Victor crumpled to the ground and Charles, pulled back into his body, nearly did the same. Charles raised a still trembling hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, doing his best to resume control of his breath. The living room was a complete disaster, that much was certain – what would he do without a front door? 

Charles stepped over Victor’s body and moved in front of the couch to retrieve his guns and cane from the floor, giving a slight groan as his left hip decided to pop on the way back up. He proceeded to move around the other bodies strewn about the area and shook his head.

What happened when the mercenaries woke up, if they woke up before Victor acted out his revenge, was not his concern.

Charles had priorities.

One of the thought lines pulled from the men noted details concerning a third retrieval team and his sister…and after this incident, he knew one thing for certain.

Charles had to get to Raven before they did.

***

There was nothing like a job well done.

The Soviet flag was safely deposited in the senator’s private safe, along with perfectly conspicuous letters. The files she had brought in her sleek briefcase replaced certain ones deemed necessary for removal.

Moira MacTaggert could tell anyone at least twelve reasons why this was wrong and why the senator did not, in fact, deserve to be ousted in this manner.

But she was rarely brought into a job for her opinion.

Moira stood up and smoothed her gloved hands down the front of her black maxi skirt as she surveyed the senator’s office with a quirk to her lips.

This was a tidy job and she was pleased with it.

As she picked up her briefcase, the sleek white phone atop the oak desk started to ring. She lifted the retriever to her ear without missing a beat.

“I’ve sent a car for you. There’s a job that needs your immediate attention.”

And the line went dead.

Moira hung the phone up and exited the room without further delay.

As promised a car had been waiting for her and she spent the ride filling out paperwork – and when the car pulled off to the side of the road, she simply continued. 

The familiar figure of Donald Pierce appeared outside the car door five minutes after she finished her report. Moira tucked her hair behind her ears and he let himself in, nodding his head to her.

“Agent Pierce.” Moira passed her higher-up the finished file and in turn received a simple manila folder.

His eyes remained on her as she opened the folder to reveal a young man’s pleasant face. He was neatly kept, hair short and tidy, with a trimmed beard and a boyish smile.

Moira raised her eyes, meeting Pierce’s. “Dr. Charles Xavier?”

Donald leaned back against the leather sets, a few strands of his blonde bangs falling across his eyes. “He prefers ‘Professor’. He’s a scientist who worked with the CIA. Retired about eight years ago, but his recent activities have deemed him a threat.”

Moira raised an eyebrow. “Bring him in?”

A sharp shake of his head and Donald brought his hand to his chin. “He’s a very smart man and has proven successful in escaping many situations. Eliminate him.”

The file was basic in description, noting participation in several of the CIA’s key tactical planning and biological research sub-fields, but no specifics were offered.

“A genius escape artist?” Moira’s smile did not quite reach her tired eyes, but she found herself looking at the file again. “I can handle that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs of this chapter were: I Say a Little Prayer by Aretha Franklin, You Don't Own Me by Dusty Springfield, and She's Got You by Patsy Cline.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Right on time (literally?!) for once. As always, thanks to my beloved betas Ari, Subtilior, and Nekosmuse for being absolutely amazing and making sure this story doesn't read like a complete and total flop.
> 
> {{Other people's thoughts.}}
> 
> {Charles' thoughts.}
> 
> And remember! This is fused with an action movie, therefore ridiculous action scenes are ALWAYS necessary! Yay!

For most, finding a person who could change form at will in a crowd of several thousand was a lost cause. For Charles and his telepathy, it was a matter of absolute concentration over the span of a few minutes. 

He navigated through the horde of minds with ease, feeling each one for Raven’s familiarity. Long ago Charles had promised not to read his sister’s mind, but he knew her presence by heart. When Raven had been the CIA’s top infiltrator, such familiarity had been an absolute necessity. When she worked a job, extra precautions were always set so that she would never be mistakenly attacked. How willingly she had gone back to a civilian lifestyle, falling back into the ebb and flow of the norm with ease.

Charles could understand the logic behind the government targeting him, but Raven? She had thrown herself back into life outside the government without hesitation and then some, declaring independence and seeking out what she wanted to do with her life - by herself. Raven had finally succeeded in escaping her brother.

_“Charles! How could you? How could you?!”_

The Incident had changed everyone and left all of them - especially Raven - with the bitter taste of betrayal heavy in their mouths.

Charles rolled his shoulders against the warm Virginia air and moved through the colorful crowd. Tents and mats formed a vague line, streamlining the way to the entrance. Clouds of cigarette and cannabis smoke wafted through the air as people laughed and sang and talked amongst themselves. The youth of this age fascinated Charles: unrestricted in ways he'd never seen before and rebellious to the core. There was no small amount of irony in the fact that his own generation had been the same way, and yet people his own age still condemned those younger. The 60s had been nothing short of wild, especially in comparison to his earliest childhood memories of the 50s, and 1970 already looked quite promising.

No one noticed him as he moved through the crowd and if they did, they didn’t mind – he ensured that. Camouflaging himself in the bright, loose garb that was incredibly popular would have been more practical – and require less use of his power – but Charles stuck to what was most familiar. Tonight’s choice: his favorite navy pantsuit, a white button-up, a daring tie of paisley made up of dark gold lines and pastel blues and pinks, and a blazer that covered his suspenders and holster. He topped of the usual liberal professor look with his forever unruly mess of wavy hair.

Charles hummed along to a woman singing Chain of Fools at the top of her lungs. If one was a white male in America, every year was a promising one. There were always exceptions to the rule, but majority won. Students had confided countless stories to Charles and he could hear so many more around him. Mutants and humans alike were oppressed and harmed one way or another. Variations in every story, but the plot and ending were always the same. How anyone could say there was nothing they had in common…

_“They would slaughter us all if they had the chance, Charles. Hate is easy for them.”_

_“Hate is driven by fear, Erik. Their judgment is clouded-“_

_“So you’re saying that I’m afraid of them, then?”_

_“You’ve all the right to be. Who could blame you? But acting on this fear only drives the opportunity for peace further away.”_

_“You say that as if everyone actually wants peace, Charles. How long until that word no longer carries the weight and power you place in it now? How long until the government throws it around easier than you do? How long until it’s just a slogan brainwashed human children repeat and scrawl across their planners while they watch mutants being put away and put down for the sake of this peace? … At least I will be there to guide you when your blind optimism is finally shattered.”_

Every time Charles seemed to make progress, his world dropped out from under him.

He knew for certain that Raven was inside the stadium – she was clever enough to go wherever she damn well-pleased. She must have managed to procure herself a backstage pass, worn little enough that she had caught someone’s eye, or had used her mutation.

Charles picked up his pace and slipped through the security entrance by the gates. The guards didn’t blink an eye and he didn’t waste another thought on them. He was barely relying on his cane – but it had come in handy enough that he knew better than to leave it in his car. There were few people inside the stadium, the clean halls mostly empty and smelling of bleach. Had Charles come for pleasure rather than business, he would have been able to appreciate the architecture properly. His attention, however, was split between not running into anything on his way to Raven and searching for hostile minds in her vicinity. 

There were a few people around her and with a silent apology, Charles spread himself a little thinner and used one young lady’s eyes to check up on Raven. She was in her blonde form and dressed in a colorful ensemble, looking entirely relaxed by the backstage entrance.

The mind was a muscle and while Charles’ was in arguably better shape than his body, multi-tasking atop a mild headache from his earlier telepathic exercise was like trying to run with a Charlie horse. Not the worst pain he’d ever experienced, but certainly the most he’d had in a while. Charles simply did his best to keep his gait quick and confident: he couldn’t block himself from others atop everything else, but he could still project a slight idea that he belonged wherever he was headed.

A man, a guard judging by his uniform, struck up a conversation with Raven. She laughed at whatever he said and a chill shot down Charles’ spine. The guard was a void to Charles’ mind. 

Using the woman’s eyes, he focused on the guard and searched over his body. No helmet or headpiece, but there was a glint of metal just above the collar of the man’s shirt: another mutant control collar. Common sense reminded Charles that Raven was a full-grown woman and far from helpless, but he launched into a sprint down the hall anyway. All his focus locked onto watching his sister through the eyes of another while he navigated the twists and turns of maintenance halls.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

Raven started to walk off with the guard and offered him a smile when he held the door open for her. Charles was almost there but the door had already shut behind them both. Charles let go of the person he’d been using and guilt washed through him: he’d held them for much too long. Them. Her. Human, female. Her name was Joy and she was 16 years old and this was the most amazing night of her life. Charles hoped it remained that way.

He turned a sharp corner and saw a sign at the end of the hall that read ‘Backstage Entrance’. He dodged barely dressed groupies crowded around changing room doors, fairly pleased that no one tried to stop him. Apparently there’d been plenty of harried white men in suits running around all evening. Charles burst through the double doors he had seen from the opposite side through Joy’s eyes and paused in the hallway. Joy stood against the wall, her green eyes locked on him, one of her eyebrows raised. Black hair, pouty mouth – an absolutely lovely girl. Charles straightened his suit and smiled at her. She smiled back and he turned, pace picking back up as he went through the door he’d seen close behind Raven. His speed further increased as Raven’s mental activity picked up, her thoughts still shielded from him, but her presence still prominent in his mind.

Charles ran down a ramp, went through three doors, was forced to backtrack when he met a dead end with Raven on the other side, and nearly tripped over some laid cables as it grew darker and darker the closer he got to her location. He just about bowled into a man with a raised gun when he whipped around a tight corner – he’d been too focused on Raven – and Charles clubbed the man over the head with his cane without a second thought.

“Raven!” 

Charles wasted no time waiting for the man to collapse, shoving the falling body out of his way as he hurried to Raven’s side. She stood in her natural blue form in the center of the small nook, surrounded by five other downed men. The guard’s control collar was partially crushed in her hand. Charles’ sudden appearance, for the first time in a long time, brought a truly delighted smile to his sister’s face.

“Charles!” 

Raven threw herself at him and Charles laughed, tired and so very happy he got to her in time. They hugged and Raven buried her face against his shoulder. “I was hoping you’d show up.” 

Charles gave his sister a squeeze and pulled back somewhat from her with one of his eyebrows arched. “Oh? Did you now?”

Raven nodded, took his arm, and pulled him from the room to fresher air via a back door tucked in the corner. The other men must have used it to get in and likely would have taken Raven out through it too. Her form rippled and she was once again blonde and rosy-cheeked. 

“As soon as the guard started talking about giving me a backstage tour I knew something was up. But I figured if he tried something, I’d kick his ass. Didn’t think he’d have friends. When they burst in through that door, I could only think…great, Charles is going to appear any minute and give me a lecture on trusting strangers.” 

The outside air was a blessing, cooled with the setting of the sun that was just a glimmer of light on the horizon. Charles glanced at his sister, her eyes at their natural yellow and set straight ahead. “That doesn’t sound like you actually wanted me to appear.”

He brushed a lock of Raven’s long hair behind her ear and the corners of her mouth pulled into a wry smile. “Might not to you, but I was really hoping. I’ve been a bit lax in my combat training. Not to mention when that last one pulled a gun? No room for cover and I wasn’t in the mood for getting shot. So! You got there in the nick of time.” 

Raven cocked her head towards Charles. “Lecture now or later?”

Charles shook his head. “No, dear, worse. I’m afraid you won’t be able to see this concert. CIA wants me dead, maybe alive, and the same goes for you. We need to find out why. And find out if anyone else has been targeted.” 

Raven bit her lip and looked back at the stadium, illuminated with its enormous colored lights, her fingers flexing against Charles’ arm. “All right.” 

Charles pulled his arm from her grip and wrapped it around her slender shoulders to pull her against his side. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been looking forward to this concert since you heard them for the first time.”

Raven leaned her head against his while they walked in zig-zag lines towards the parking lot. “I’ll see them another day. Besides, I’m going with so I can kick the asses of those who ruined this evening for me.” Charles drummed his fingers against Raven’s side, lips pursed. “Thought you already did?” 

Raven shook her head in dismissal and snorted. “Those were just the cronies, dear brother mine. I am going to kick my way up the chain of power until I can put a boot to the ass of whoever got this organized in the first place.” She gave a smile full of straight white teeth. “And then I’ll make them eat it.” 

Venus twinkled on the horizon and Charles kissed the top of Raven’s head. “Fair enough, dear.”

#### 

***

The bed and breakfast was a delightfully cozy place that managed to bring the air of the countryside to its urban location. It was run by a delightfully generic old couple whose darkest secrets consisted of a few sips of sherry during Lent and occasionally cheating at their Friday night poker game. Charles enjoyed the atmosphere and the flowered wallpaper with complementary blue drapes at oak-paneled windows. Raven had made no comment, simply having chosen to curl up in the queen-sized bed and pass out. 

In fact Raven was still buried beneath the feather comforter when Charles woke up at precisely 3:05 pm. He eased himself gently from his sister’s arms and re-tucked the blanket around her for protection from the chilled air. She would sleep while Charles ran a few errands. He needed to acquire some important information. 

He could only hope that Miss Frost was in a helping mood.

Her secretary certainly wasn’t, a frown planted firmly on her face when Charles stepped out of the elevator into the chic office lobby located at the top of a dazzling new skyscraper – Stark architecture if he was not mistaken. Charles had opted for a well-dressed summer look, but from what he could judge by her continued displeased expression and her internal monologue, a three piece suit would have been a better choice than his selection of khaki slacks, grey cardigan, and light salmon button-up. At least he’d remembered a tie even if he had to buy it on the way there. Thankfully Atlanta had a fine selection of menswear boutiques the taxi driver had been more than willing to take him to in order to rectify his mistake. Charles felt fairly confident about his new silver, white, and yellow plaid purchase. He simply smiled and crossed the mahogany-paneled room to Miss April’s desk, cane clicking with each step he took.

She had no qualms about shutting him down before Charles could even greet her. “Ms. Frost does not see anyone without an appointment. There are no appointments listed for this afternoon, sir. You’ll need to schedule one.” 

Charles continued to smile, undeterred by her icy manner. “Oh, of course. Thankfully for the both of us, Emma is expecting me.” 

He had stopped masking his presence from the other telepath the moment he set foot in the skyscraper. In fact, he had a most pleasant conversation with Emma concerning crepes and poorly executed assassination attempts while he rode up the elevator.

The phone on the secretary’s desk beeped and Emma’s voice came through crisp and clear. “Send him back, April.” 

The young woman stared at the phone before she gave a small nod. “Right away, Ms. Frost.” April’s brown eyes locked on Charles and she pointed over her shoulder to a grand set of double doors. “Right that way, sir.” She gave the smallest of smiles and Charles inclined his head in return. 

“Have a good day, Miss April.” 

He only used one door to enter Emma’s office, quietly shutting it behind him, beyond a time of grandiose entrances.

“Hello, Charles.”

Charles’ smile grew wider if that were possible, expression lines crinkling at his eyes, at the sight of not one, but two very familiar women in the office. His attention was on the blonde, however, and he strode up to meet his hostess, took her hand, and kissed it. “Emma, darling, you’re as radiant as ever.” 

And she certainly was, wrapped in a feminine pantsuit – her signature white, spotless and positively blinding in her sunlit penthouse – and sporting heels that allowed her to tower over Charles with complete ease.

Emma smiled and took his hand between both of hers. “I never thought retirement would actually look good on you, dear. Sprightly thing you’d been, but you look quite lovely yourself.” 

Her eyes flicked down to his tie and back up to his face. “I see your taste in outrageous ties has at least become color-coordinated.” She turned toward the other woman in the room with them. “That’s everything, Angel. I have an appointment at five tonight and you’re accompanying me. I want you to wear the blue qipao with silver trim.” 

Angel nodded and offered Charles a small smile, pausing next to him on her way out. “Angel.” Charles opened his arms and nearly dropped his cane when she moved right into a hug.

_The girl was the only child standing among the destruction, her peers sitting or lying down on the ground – all of them either injured or dead._

_{{They’re not children, Charles. They never got the chance.}}_

_Charles bit his lip, blue eyes looking to meet grey-green set above a grim mouth and hardened jaw, and nodded. They were young, but they held expressions he’d seen only in war camps and on the faces of experienced soldiers. One of the girl’s wings was injured and she was covered with cuts, likely from the glass that lay on the ground around her. But she met Charles’ eyes fearlessly and threw an arm out at the ruins behind her. “Don’t just stand there! Do something!” She coughed, the heavy smoke in the air harsh on all their lungs. “He needs to be stopped!”_

The sigh Charles released ended with both his shoulders more relaxed than when he had first entered the room and he took both of Angel’s hands in his own. “Eight years has done nothing but good for you, dear.” 

Angel had grown up: a fuller, mature version of the young beauty that Charles remembered, blush on her cheeks rather than blood and ash. And her mind…warmth emanated from her as Charles gently touched his mind to hers. Better than he could have ever dared hope for.

“Angel is my personal assistant. She’s been a lifesaver since the government…insisted on our retirement.” Emma walked to the great bay windows that made up her western wall and Charles released Angel’s hands with a tender squeeze before he followed Emma, the door clicking shut behind the younger woman. 

“Who could have seen this?” Emma’s stance was strong, her feet slightly apart and her hands firm behind her. “Emma Frost, best information broker in the whole damn world and they shunt me off to a damn office to conduct private company deals instead.”  
Charles stepped up beside the frowning woman, fingers drumming the top of his cane as he enjoyed the view: fluffy white clouds in an endless blue sky above, and people going about their arguably plebian lives below.

“Nothing arguable about it, Charles. They work nine to five, raise their children and walk their dogs, happy to stay in their boxes. And we’ve been forced into those same little lives we used to laugh about.” Emma glanced at the cane in Charles’ hand, eyes narrowed considerably before she turned away from the window. “Adding insult to injury, now they want us dead because – let’s face it – if they’d try to kill Raven, I’m on their list too.” 

She sighed and motioned Charles in the direction of her desk, heels clicking on the hardwood floor along the way. Charles considered it with no particular expression: crystal was her choice of decoration, taking the form of a penholder, paperweight, and something that looked like a bird. 

“That’s what I’m afraid of, Emma. Worse yet, they might consider the chil—everyone even vaguely connected to us as threats…” 

“You’d tear HQ apart yourself if they did, Charles.” Emma picked up a small notepad from her meticulous desktop, tore the top page out, and held it toward Charles between two manicured fingernails. “I got what I could on this impossibly short notice. The teams sent after you and Raven belong to a private military company based out of South Africa. They specialize in wetsuit missions and they have a one hundred percent success rate. Well.” Her upper lip curled. “Until they decided to take you on. Did you even let them believe for a second that they had you? Or did you destroy them without care? Regardless-“ She tapped the piece of paper in Charles’ hand. “They’re connected to the death of a New York reporter, Christine Everhart. Find out what she was getting into and you’ll likely get some proper answers.”

From a cabinet by her desk, Emma produced two porcelain teacups, which she set down beside an extravagant mechanical teapot. “In the meantime, have some tea with me, Charles.”

{{This is a considerable issue, dear. Should you find yourself overwhelmed…the Brotherhood always helps its own.}}

Charles beamed at Emma, accepting the teacup and tracing the gold-rimmed edge with a fingertip. “But of course, Emma. It’s been much too long.”

{Is that the catchphrase your leader has coined? Thank you, dear, but we will be fine.}

Emma reached out to Charles, her tapered fingers tucking a lock of hair behind Charles’ ear. Her eyes searched his face for…something – perhaps questions that Charles had no answers for.

{{The offer will always stand, Charles.}}

He simply continued to smile and sipped his tea, noting that Emma liked cream as much as he.

#### 

***

“How can there be so little information on a person? It’s not possible.”

Moira frowned at the Stark Unit in front of her, brown eyes scanning across the bright screen as she clicked her way through Charles Xavier’s files one by one. There was plenty of information on his illustrious school career – in Oxford University by the age of 16, currently possessing three doctorates, and was working on his fourth. There was more on his family – excluding his sister, whose files were also empty – and the Xavier line’s wealth. For whatever reason he had opted to not move back into his family estate in New York – a note attached explained that while born in England, he was raised in America and obtained citizenship after his mother remarried and moved to her husband’s home country. He returned to England for school and when he came back to America he was snatched up by the US government to work in the CIA’s science division.

The one little hiccup? All of the projects he’d been involved in did not exist and no one had anything to say about them to her. According to what information Moira did have, Xavier was a brilliant man with a flawless record who simply retired to teach genetics at an elite college. And he needed to be dead for whatever reason. It was not Moira’s place to question her employer, but how could she make plans to capture a perfectly innocuous scientist that was somehow able to take down a covert ops team?

Her thumb and middle finger pressed to the far corners of each eye, Moira forcibly breathed in and out. She was swathed in enough red tape to feel like a newbie again: not that many still didn’t treat her as such. Moira never missed how the higher-ups still looked at her with amusement or how many of the new recruits would regard her with skepticism – the CIA’s top agent, a woman? She could eat all of the sexist pigs here for breakfast . Instead she settled for proving them all wrong one mission after another.

The phone on her desk rang. Moira picked it up and paused, making sure she was calm enough before she put the receiver to her ear. “Yes?”

“We got a call from one of our people. A man she believes to be Charles Xavier visited a company broker named Emma Frost down in Atlanta. She used to broker information for the CIA. We’ve long suspected her of turning her back on us and if she’s helping Xavier, then she’s a risk to the operation. We believe Charles’ sister, Raven, is also with him.”

Moira hissed and typed the woman’s name into her unit immediately. A Ms. Emma Frost came up and she opened her file. An absolutely beautiful woman with a cold stare that could give Moira’s a run for her money stared back at her. Surprise, surprise: she retired around the same time as Xavier and his sister, and all of her broker files were blank.

“Agent MacTaggert?”

Moira tucked the receiver between her chin and shoulder while she gathered her personal effects. “I’ll go myself. I need the fastest jet we have if I have any hope of catching him.” She signed out of the Stark Unit and swapped her heels for a more practical pair of boots.

“Already on it, agent. Be out on the blacktop in five.”

The line went dead and Moira hung up. She set out of her office and down the tiled hall at a dead run, passing other offices and unperturbed agents along the way. As she left the building, her lips pulled into a smile – funny how a bad day could suddenly turn into a very good one.

#### 

***

Charles had expected Raven to leave the bed and breakfast despite his note that told her otherwise. He had hoped to find her in the middle of buying clothes or meet up with her at a café after he left Emma’s office. He had not expected to find her – and Angel, no less – in a dank alley next to a seedy-looking building, surrounded by yet another set of downed men. This time they were in police uniforms.

“What?” Raven crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one hip, one booted foot still atop the head of a particularly beaten man. “They’d been following us since we ran into each other downtown. We had to deal with them somehow.”

Angel nodded in agreement, brushing down the front of her dress skirt. “They’re probably not even real cops, Mr. X.”

There was a nickname Charles hadn’t heard in a very long time. He looked between them: Raven, blonde and flushed in her loose blouse and maxi skirt, and Angel, dark and made up to the nines, dressed in business chic. 

A moment’s consideration and he finally smiled. “Serves them all right for underestimating you both. Now.” He looked pointedly at Angel, cane and feet leaving prints on the backs of the men he didn’t bother to step over . “You need to get back to Emma. Tell her what happened and stay with her. We’re already certain that Emma is going to be targeted as well and you could be at risk too.”

Angel nodded and turned to Raven: they gave each other a tight hug. “Take care, all right? I don’t want to hear about you and Mr. X getting blown up or something. I know how the CIA works.” To have called the expression on Angel’s face distasteful would have been too mild. 

Raven rubbed between Angel’s shoulder blades. “Of course. Same for you and Emma. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

Charles had nothing to add. Angel just nodded. They left the alley together and went their separate ways, Angel back downtown and the siblings the opposite way in the direction of the bed and breakfast. 

Cars zipped by as they headed down the sidewalk. Charles’ head was back, eyes on the pinks and purples of the evening sky, but his mind was focused on keeping a feel out for any more aggressors.

Raven stopped beside a cop car parked alongside the curb and smirked at Charles. “How about we take a shorter route back to the motel?” 

Charles raised a dark eyebrow at his sister. 

“Raven. You cannot be suggesting that we—oh.” A set of keys dangled from Raven’s fingers, produced from her purse.

“Snagged them from the first one who jumped us in case we had to make a break for it.” 

Charles looked at his sister’s face, framed by hair tousled by the evening wind, down to the keys, and back. He shrugged and plucked the keys from her fingers with a quick move of his hand. 

“I’m driving.”

Charles took the back roads through the neighborhoods and construction zones. While going through downtown would be quicker, it’d also be harder to make a getaway when surrounded by cars and people. So when he sensed a hostile mind moving at an impressive speed toward them, he frowned, but was nonetheless grateful there was no one else in the immediate area. “Are you wearing your seatbelt?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now hold on tight.”

A black Mercedes slammed into the back of their car with a deafening crunch. Had Charles been manning the wheel rather than relying on Raven to do so singlehandedly - her other hand pressed against the dash - the car would likely not have spun out. But he shoved open the door instead, guns drawn, and stepped out of the vehicle without hesitation , firing into the Mercedes’ windshield as he walked toward it. He didn’t flinch when the cruiser barely missed him, swerving right behind his legs as Raven did her best to safely crash the car into a stop sign.

The other driver – Agent Moira MacTaggert, it seemed – immediately threw the Mercedes into reverse, gunning backward as best as she could while ducked down behind her wheel. She slammed into a parked car and her vehicle stalled. Charles stopped firing when she moved completely out of sight but he kept his guns raised. He started to move back toward his car, glass crunching under his dress shoes with each step.

{A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Agent MacTaggert.}

The agent’s mind halted, her thought process sputtering, and Charles had the courtesy to sympathize with her. {Oh dear, they didn’t tell you, did they? First that company and now you. Must not want it known that the CIA’s top agents were mutants.} 

The woman’s mind kicked back into gear, but she was caught between figuring a way to get Charles out of her head and realizing why Charles’ information did not exist in the databanks. 

{Very good! You, madam, are a sure sign that the CIA hasn’t lost hope.} He smiled and holstered his guns as he climbed into the passenger seat. Raven had moved to the driver’s side and was speaking into the two-way radio in a gruff, Southern accent. 

{I hope to see you again, agent. Maybe we can talk over a nice pot of tea sometime? That’d be delightful.}

He had barely shut the car door when Raven shifted gear and drove right over the median. Charles’ teeth ached with each slam of the undercarriage against the curb. Raven took a sharp turn down a side road. “Hope you can still run after that stunt.” 

Charles merely grunted and pulled his cane from behind him. “Do I have much of a choice?”

He had just enough time to turn and clutch his car seat before Raven crashed into yet another stop sign. She grinned and offered him a thumbs-up.

They left the cruiser, Moira and her Mercedes not far behind them. Raven pulled Charles into a dilapidated building, signs declaring it for sale despite its clear lack of upkeep. Charles slammed the door shut in time before Moira skidded around the corner. They watched through the planked window as she jumped out of her Mercedes, gun aimed at the cop car, her movement cautious. 

She was as striking as her mind: Charles was quite serious about the invitation to tea. 

Raven tugged his arm and he let her drag him up the stairs as sirens started up and came at quite the hurry. He paused at the top of the stairway and glanced out the window to watch as Moira was surrounded. The agent simply grimaced and raised her arms over her head. Charles mirrored her expression. At least they had the courtesy to select a female officer to tackle her.

The duo left through the rear fire escape and kept to the back alleys. Charles simply triggered the flight response in anyone that looked at the two of them for too long. Of course their pathways took them by trash bins and through puddles of questionable liquids and by the time they reached the bed and breakfast, Charles wished they had time to shower.

“So. Where to?” Raven tossed their bags into the boot, eyes focused on Charles over the hood of their car. Charles leaned against the door, lips pursed as he looked out at the silhouette of the city against the night sky. 

“Manhattan.” 

Laughter echoed from a far edge of the bed and breakfast – a group of friends also headed toward New York – a place where their dreams would come true. Or so their minds had it.

Charles sighed. “Hopefully we’ll get some of the answers we’ve been looking for.” And perhaps he could finally let go of old dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration provided by Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin ; Sugar Pie, Honey Bun - The Temptations; and Blue Bayou - Linda Ronstad.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mm, it's been a while. My apologies. Work and general lack of proper drive really took it out of me. And then Beta loss. So I've edited this fic around and all remaining mistakes are naturally my fault until I can find a new beta.
> 
> As always, the characters don't belong to me, I just write fanfic.

Mrs. Everhart liked her tea a bit too sweet for Charles’ taste. Then again she was a coffee drinker herself. By the time she managed to take a sip from her mug, it was likely salty and diluted by her tears.

“You-” Her breath hitched, red-eyed and blonde hair in disarray; a complete 180 from the doll-like woman beaming in the family portraits hanging on the walls. “You worked with my Christine?”

Charles and Raven both nodded, side by side on the couch opposite from the love seat the grieving mother was draped across. With careful fingers Charles set his delicate pink teacup down onto the coffee table before him and leaned forward.

“Mrs. Everhart. We were working on an…investigative piece together. Christine left the state several times and after her latest trip…well, to be frank, ma’am, she was acting very oddly.” He lowered his eyes in indication that he felt himself ultimately to blame for the young woman’s death.

The older woman pulled her lower lip into her mouth and looked down, her focus on the red carpet beneath her guests’ feet. Silence ensued and, taking extra care to be his gentlest, Charles followed her train of thought, a gentle passenger watching everything fly by. Christine Everhart had been her mother’s pride: beautiful, intelligent and ambitious. Even the traditional Mr. Everhart approved of his daughter’s stubborn determination to move forward in her career. 

Mrs. Everhart gave an uneven sigh, patting her nose with a kerchief produced from her cardigan pocket. “There’s no need to apologize. She knew what she was getting into when she entered this field. I know—oh!” She stumbled up from her seat, startling the dog at her feet into running out of the room. Charles stood with her, sparing a glance back at Raven, currently disguised as a vaguely-aged brunette, who waved his attention back to their hostess. They watched Mrs. Everhart stagger to the mantel of her marble fireplace. From behind a photo of her smiling daughter she produced a postcard. Charles moved to stand beside her and took the offered piece of stiff paper.

“Christine sent you this?”

Mrs. Everhart nodded rapidly, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. “It arrived the day she died, but I was so distressed that I completely forgot about it. And—” The woman’s expression turned disagreeable, heart-shaped mouth moving down into a sour frown. “I certainly was not going to hand it over to the police!”

Charles was grateful that they shared a mutual distrust for the police. He stared at the post with its sepia photograph of Lady Liberty and flipped it over to reveal something incredibly familiar to him. Raven appeared behind his shoulder, peering at the combination of numbers and letters: TJ 101 .S37 1963. 

“What is it?”

Mrs. Everhart shrugged. “It’s not a phone number; it’s certainly not a safe combination. I can’t make any sense of it!” She turned away from the both of them to face her spacious living room, shoulders drooping. The wealth of her home provided no comfort; Charles could clearly hear the woman’s internal screaming – how she would give the designer drapes up, the china, the silver, her couture wardrobe: everything, she would give anything and everything to have her daughter back.

He stepped forward, hand gently touching her elbow. She paused at the touch and her shoulders rose back up, beginning to shake. Her voice was barely a whisper, husked from the past few days of crying. “I just want Christine back…”

Charles handed the postcard off to Raven in time to catch Mrs. Everhart before she collapsed to the ground. The mother had reached her limit for the day. Week? Charles’ assessment covered the mental, not emotional, aspect of the woman’s mind, but he had no doubt that she was suffering down to the very core of her being. Charles helped her to the velveteen couch, sitting on the edge as she held onto him in a vise grip until her weeping died down, exhaustion taking over her. Raven brought the quilt from the loveseat over and Charles stepped back as she tucked Mrs. Everhart in.

Their exit was quick and silent, locking the door behind them to the best of their ability. Raven’s face sported a firm frown as they entered the parking deck, folding the postcard up and stuffing it into her post. “That didn’t do a whole lot of good.”

Charles tutted and unlocked their doors, taking his spot at the driver’s seat as usual. “On the contrary. That postcard and a piece of information from Mrs. Everhart’s mind have given us a new path to follow.”

Raven hardly looked convinced, lips still down and eyebrows arched high. “And what’s that?”

Charles pointed at Raven’s purse while he shifted gears, exiting the parking structure. “Christine’s Alma Mater. We’ll find what we need there.”

#### 

***

Moira found herself in the uncomfortable position of wanting to strangle the next gloating man that approached her. Tricked by a renegade scientist and locked up in a cell for nearly four hours while the government sorted everything out. She’d been on the receiving end of smirks ever since stepping back into HQ. 

Instead of knocking heads she settled for nearly kicking in Pierce’s office door, gritting her teeth and ready to argue any possible point he could try to come up with for why he should give someone else this operation. She was even wearing a full pantsuit for additional intimidation.  
“Ah, Agent MacTaggert-“

Moira threw the false file atop the papers he had been reading and set her hands on her hips, brown eyes narrowed to near slits. “Charles Xavier is not some R and D scientist gone rogue, Pierce. I want the truth. I deserve the truth.”

Donald sighed, tenting his spindly white fingers together and looking at her with that never changing impassive expression. “I was hoping this could have been dealt with quickly, but it clearly that was a futile wish.”

Moira focused on the US flag hanging right behind her superior, breathing in and out with each steady count. She needed calm, she needed grounding; she could only yell at the man so much. If any other male agent shouted he would be called passionate about his job. She simply got snide remarks about the female emotion spectrum and hinting questions as to whether she was on her cycle or not. 

Moira forced her eyes back down to meet Pierce’s steely gaze, matching with granite, setting her feet slightly apart to strengthen her stance. He sighed and tore a piece of paper off a pad and scribbled something down. “You’ll need to visit the Vault, then.”

Moira took the piece of paper, careful to avoid touching his fingers in any way possible and scanned over it. “The Vault? On my way then.”

She headed straight for the elevators across the hall, punching in the floor as directed on the sheet. As an intelligence officer, there were always things above her, questions she could not have answered, secrets she was not privy to. But when she was hunting down someone she was positive was a powerful mutant, she was going to get the information she needed no matter what.

The doors dinged and opened to reveal a small foyer featuring nothing but an enormous door and keypad. Moira ignored the prickles up her spine as she moved to punch in the appropriate code, listening to the following whir of mechanical noises as the heavy door disengaged and slowly opened.

On the other side stood a small, smiling white-haired woman who gave a prompt, professional nod. “Agent Moira MacTaggert. Margaret Carter. A pleasure to meet you. Right this way, please.”

She had one of the loveliest English accents Moira had ever heard.

Margaret led Moira to a large square room composed entirely of file cabinets set right to the wall with nothing but a small table right in the center. Turning a sharp 180 Margaret assessed Moira with sharp eyes, her stance giving away a military background. “How can I help you today?”

Moira cleared her throat, finding that she had temporarily lost the ability to speak. “I need Charles Xavier’s file. His true file.”

Margaret laughed, heels echoing through the room as she moved to one of the large cabinets. “Nothing but the truth here, Agent.”

“Agent Carter—”

The older woman waved a hand at Moira while her other remained in the cabinet, moving through the contents. “None of that. I’m retired. In fact, technically I don’t even exist. Peggy will do.”

“Peggy. You’re the CIA’s records keeper, then?”

Peggy nodded and hefted an oversized file from the cabinet without a problem. “Yes I am. And yes, I’m English. But I was involved in one of America’s most heavily guarded secrets and thus it was seen fit that I handle their other secrets. The US government doesn’t let one retire with ease when you’ve been in deep. But I digress, here is Charles.”

She stepped up to the table, opposite of Moira, and dropped the massive folder right onto the table with a loud, resounding thud. Moira used both hands to pull it to her side of the table and openly balked when she flipped to the first set of documents. Save for a few words here and there, the entire first page was struck out. And the second page. And each following one. The second document was the same. As was the third. The agent looked up into Peggy’s casually smiling face. “So much?”

Peggy simply nodded. “Oh yes, Agent. Charles Xavier was one of the CIA’s top Black Ops agents, if not the best. And such a nice young man! The Mutant Division was our most effective branch and if Charles was involved it had a one-hundred-percent chance of success.”

Moira’s fingers traced the rough papers, feeling one hand-written note that actually held some decent content, her expression stuck in furrowed confusion. “We’ve never had a Mutant Division.”

Peggy clucked her tongue. “According to the records? There never was one. It was disbanded a few years back and the agents were all retired.” She crossed her arms, brown eyes rolling to the side. “And then some upstart goes and tags Charles ‘M.A.D.’ for some reason.”

Moira cocked her head in sudden interest. “M.A.D.?”

“Oh, yes.” Peggy closed the file and tapped the bright red stamp the stretched across the top of the folder, clearer than anything else. “Mutant And Dangerous.”  
Moira traced the stamp, reading the various Top Secret stickers that it went across. It was clear that Peggy did not know why Charles was tagged or else she might have at least hinted, as she’d already given so much information, that there was something wrong with Charles. But instead it turned out in reality that he was a model agent with a perfect record. Moira flipped through a few more documents, taking whatever names she could and absorbing what little information was offered.

It took not even a full hour and Peggy simply took the file back to the cabinet, no further comments or questions to offer. Moira paused and then offered her hand. “Right then. Thank you, Peggy.”

Peggy’s grip was firm and her shake solid. “You be careful, Agent MacTaggert.”

Moira nodded and made her way out, mixed feelings churning within her at the sympathetic edge to Peggy’s smile and that knowing expression all women in the government carried in their eyes. That would all have to wait.

She had a lot of phone calls to make.

#### 

***

“We need a university?” Raven’s eyes roamed the campus, not as barren as most seem to expect during the summer months. Summer programs were packed, especially in the science fields – Hank was substituting for him after all and thus the siblings blended in easily. Until he stepped onto the grounds, Charles hadn’t realized how much he’d missed a learning environment. While the energy was slightly different, the overall feel of Columbia was not unlike MIT.

“We need their library.”

Charles smiled wide and around him minds buzzed, full of information, occasionally drugs, and of course someone was always trying to figure a way to skip their next class. Yes, Charles loved being at a school; perhaps when this was all concluded he could resume teaching peacefully.

Students moseyed along on their way to class, professors talked outside with students and co-workers alike. And the library in the background – the Nicholas Murray Butler Library – was nothing short of magnificent. It was a shame that, with all this traveling, he had little time to appreciate all that had changed in the world that he had once perused at his pleasure. His ego encouraged him to see if any of his published books were in the library once they got inside, but he restrained, instead choosing to lead Raven inside and to the main staircase.

“What we need, dear, is a book. And according to the librarians…” They paused at the top of the stairs; Charles’s eyes sliding in the direction of the main desk back down on the first floor. Raven unlinked her arm from her brother’s, smoothing down the front of her cream top and fixing the pockets of her violet slacks. A group of young men passed by, all smirks and smiles, and she smiled back, regardless of the fact that all would scream if she flashed her true eyes at them.

Charles gave a friendly bump with his hip and pointed left with his cane. “We’ll find it this way. Progressive Mechanical Engineering by Howard Stark.”

They passed by ancient history, through women’s studies, and Raven had to drag Charles out of theoretical sciences because he had spotted a published collection of Dr. Victor Doom’s journals.

“Raven! I’m fairly sure there is at least one article I haven’t yet read in there—oh bloody hell—”

“Now is not the time for your science crushes, Charles.” Raven’s tone was light, dismissive, and absolutely definitive. She kept a firm hold on his elbow the rest of the way.

Engineering had Charles’ respect, but not his interest, so there was little chance of him getting distracted as they browsed the shelves for the book whose code Christine Everhart had sent to her mother.

“Hah!”

Charles looked down – Raven was a shelf below him – as she pulled a heavy textbook off the shelf. “Here we go. God, you could kill someone with this thing.”  
He hummed a single note and followed her to a small corner desk. No one would be disturbing the area for a while, not with the heavy idea that this was not a peaceful area to that would resound in their heads should they approach it. The book itself was perfectly innocuous: red cover, basic font, and full of equations no political journalist would have need of.

Raven’s blonde brows lowered, her lower lip held firm between her teeth as she flipped through the pages. After 50 she smacked the open book with the back of her hand. “It’s all mathematical jargon, Charles. Are we supposed to break a code with this?”

The professor leaned over and picked the book up, keeping it open and studying it. Christine had been a bright girl, but she’d left nothing else beside the book. So. “I think we’re going about this the wrong way.” And he flipped the book over, hanging it face down and shaking it to the best of his ability. A single piece of paper slipped from the middle of the book and cascaded down, only to be snatched midair by Raven. Charles promptly snapped the book shut and leaned over her shoulder as they examined the paper.

“It’s…It’s a list of names! Here is mine, yours…oh! Emma’s too!” Thankfully she was too focused on going through the list to see his mouth turn further and further down as he scanned the names. The ache in his chest returned and in a small moment of hallucination, his guns burned hot against his chest. Too many memories attached to too many of these names. Most he knew, some only distantly…And all these people, the last he had heard, were alive. But that was all about to change, wasn’t it?

He looked to the side, away from the list and to the open library, doing his best to find peace through the smell of books and calm, intellectual hum of working minds through the air. Slender fingers touched his face gently, brushing his longish hair from his eyes. He was smiling as soon as he met Raven’s worried eyes, all too aware that he couldn’t mask the circles under his eyes or the lines that even a 32 year old developed after younger years of violence and non-stop work. She did not know the full scope, but she knew the connection between the names and his silence as she had been there with him – he was just surprised she was concerned.

_“Charles, you’ve ruined everything!”_

Charles closed his hand around hers and kissed the top of it. “I’ll go call Emma. Wait for me?”

She nodded and he pulled away, heading back the way they came, the cane making little noise and impeding very little as he went back down the stairs. The payphones in the foyer would have to do; they were risky, being such a public line, but Emma and Angel could disappear before the government – or their goons – got to them.

Carefully he tucked the receiver between his head and shoulder while he popped in the necessary change. Emma would likely have a few things to say about him direct dialing rather than working through the operating system, but the less people he had to work with, the better. The phone rang and then nothing but a dead dial tone met his ear. Charles shoved down the ill feeling that tried to take over and got his change back, instead direct dialing Emma’s private home line. Now this number she may not forgive him for using, but it was for emergencies and this was an emergency.

He waited as the phone rang and his knuckles began to whiten as his grip on his cane got tighter the longer the phone rang. Finally someone picked up and from the other side all Charles could hear was faint, shuddery breathing. It wasn’t Emma.

“Angel? Is that you?”

And through the phone he heard her burst into tears.

“Charles! God damn it Charles! The entire building—she’s gone—I don’t know—”

Charles sagged against the wall, cradling the receiver to his face and propping his cane beside him so that he may use the extra hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. God damn it. He held his tongue firm between his teeth for a moment so that no words to encourage any senseless revenge would escape him. “Angel. Angel…” He spoke softly, firmly – Raven always said that he had a heavy paternal air to him. “Start from the beginning. I want to hear everything.”

Angel hissed through the phone and began to forcibly breathe in and out slowly, the hitches in her breath from crying slowly diminishing. “This morning Emma sent me to the house to collect some files. I didn’t want to go – we’ve been together since you and Raven visited – but she ordered me out. Like, with one of those mental commands some of you telepaths can do. So naturally at the time I didn’t think to question it, much less think about it, but now it’s clear that she wanted me out enough that she used her powers on me.”

Charles could see Emma doing that. Never out of malice, not with Angel, but clearly the woman had to have been desperate if she wasn’t going to take her time to find a way to convince Angel to leave.

Angel hiccupped and pressed on. “It took me about two hours – there weren’t many files, but some were hidden away, tucked up in specific places. And I was almost back when…I was right across the street Charles, at West Main, admiring how the sun reflects off the glass and…the top of the skyscraper exploded! Glass came down everywhere, people were screaming and running…I was going to try to get in, but I saw some Suits and Emma always said—” Another hiccup and Charles stepped in.

“I understand, Angel. Emma would too. You did exactly what she would have expected you to do – what she would have wanted you to do. This means that Emma planned this out entirely and knew before long one of us would have made the call. Angel, do you still have the files?”

From the other side came a snuffle and a noise of assent. “All of them.”

“Excellent. Now, did Emma ever take you to a particularly lovely shop out in Washington state?”

“I don’t—oh wait. Yes. Yes, she did.”

“Ah, very good. We’re headed there ourselves. Do you have a means of comfortably getting there?”

He could hear the hint of a smile from her side, the thought of her wings slipping through his mind. He simply didn’t want her to take any more risks than necessary. “Yes.”

“We’ll meet you there in a couple days, then. Keep the files safe, but more importantly keep yourself safe. All right, love?”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be there. Don’t you make me wait long.”

Charles made a noise that was more of a sigh than laughter. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”  
Slowly he hung up and turned around to meet Raven, who’d been looming behind him for the past three or so minutes. The list of names was crumpled in her fist and her eyes were gold. She offered a tight smile and Charles could see her jaw clenching and unclenching through her cheeks.

“So, Washington, then?”

Charles reached out, taking her hand and the paper held within in it. “It’s a roundabout way to go, but you know he’d never let it go if I gave information up over the phone.”

Raven laughed and hooked their arms together, leading the way out. “I say we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t take our heads as soon as he smells us. Come on, then. Maybe he’ll have some of the answers we’re looking for.”

**Author's Note:**

> Connie Francis made this chapter possible with the songs "I'm Sorry I Made You Cry", "My Happiness", and "Among My Souvenirs".


End file.
